- Los Angeles opens 2026-27 as the oldest team in the NHL by average age after another summer of veteran shopping
- Quinton Byfield inherits the No. 1 center job from Anze Kopitar, with Brandt Clarke running the power play
- Read below for the Drew Doughty question, the goalie split and where the Kings are projected to finish
The Los Angeles Kings are the oldest team in the NHL by average age, and that is not an accident.
Ken Holland spent another offseason in the veteran aisle. Mats Zuccarello arrived at 39, Erik Haula at 35, and Corey Perry came back at 41. Anze Kopitar retired without a replacement at center.
Zuccarello got the full Los Angeles welcome at Dodger Stadium this week:
Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin laid out the rest of it in his Kings preview, and the details are rough. Five straight first-round exits. A prospect pool ranked 21st in the league. An opening-night roster projection with zero rookies on it.
Last season produced a record the Kings would rather not own. They dropped 20 games in overtime or a shootout, the most loser points any team has collected in a single season, then got swept out of Round 1 by Colorado.
Two players decide how this year goes. Byfield finally has the top center job he was handed in August, projected between Artemi Panarin and Adrian Kempe.
Brandt Clarke is the other one. He signed a five-year deal at $7.4 million per season over the summer and will quarterback the top power-play unit all year. Among defensemen across the last three seasons, only Cale Makar averages more primary assists per 60 at 5-on-5.
Panarin already showed what he does to this lineup. Kempe scored 16 goals in his final 25 games after the trade with Panarin assisting on 11 of them, a 52-goal pace across a full season.
Peter Laviolette takes over a bench D.J. Smith held on an interim basis for the last 23 games, and he wants the puck in the other team’s end. His clubs have finished top-10 in goals 12 times. Panarin put up a career-high 120 points playing for him in New York.
Check out the new coach picking up notes across town at Chargers practice:
Goaltending is a split. Darcy Kuemper ranked 38th of 59 goalies in goals saved above expected per 60 last season and sank a penalty kill that finished at 74.6 percent, the worst mark in Los Angeles since 1986-87. Anton Forsberg graded 14th in that same category and earned the playoff net.
Drew Doughty is the question hanging over all of it.
He has said he wants to finish his career in Los Angeles. Holland told reporters in June the Kings would not extend him before the season, and the team still has not named a captain to replace Kopitar. Doughty turns 37 in December and hits unrestricted free agency in 2027.
Larkin pegs the Kings at 95 to 100 points, a small step up from last year and still short of a second round. Byfield and Clarke are the only two players on the roster who can change that math.
